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Lady's Shroud
Black as ink it lay in her fingers, and cold it felt on her cheek. Round and round she wrapped it, till all the world was gray and bleak. It flowed out from her sorrowed head, drifting lazily in the evening breeze, a mane of shadow, its edges churned as nighttime seas. He appeared before her then, with eyes warm but skin cold. A weak smile played across his lips as he gazed upon his lover old. Hot ran the tears from her eyes, and she laughed and sang as she grasped him again. Yet no sound escaped the cowl, no lover's cheer or widow's howl. Long they held eachother in the night, till the girl's family sought her in fright. Dawn broke over the forest glen, they found her lying on the grass within. No pulse in her veins, they pulled at the skein, revealed a face cold and wane. Yet on her lips there played a smile, eyes closed all the while. For through the cowl she had sought her man, yet a terrible price such a vision ran. Cast away they did the cowl, in river rapid and waters foul, yet again and again it finds a patron, aggrieved soldier or bereaved matron. For not all who lose accept their fate, and for these few does the Lady wait. A simple trade the shroud presents, a glimpse, an embrace, an end to lament. But the cost of such sight runs high, eagerly paid in tear-stained eye. Death falls on those who see, and from the trade no man can flee. - From 'Tales of the Gods', a popular collection of poems in Hoffendale. The Lady's Shroud is a Planar Anchor that links the realm of the Lady of Candles to the Material Plane. Widely believed to a cursed artefact, it often appears in tragedies and stories of mortal hubris, enticing those who wish to see beyond the mortal realm, or dooming those who attempt to escape death or their fate. Properties and Legends The Lady's Shroud, if charted through the folklores and legends of Tolas, has traveled across the world in a highly erratic pattern, appearing and disappearing seemingly at a whim. Its qualities are almost as equally mysterious, though some recurrent themes exist. These include: Death - The bearer of the Lady's Shroud is often described as being cursed by its possession, doomed to die shortly after wearing it, or wasting away due to recurrent use. Very few legends describe figures bearing the shroud and escaping unscathed. Second Sight - The shroud, according to myth, has often been used to contact the spirits of the dead and lost, interacting with the realm of the dead, or used as part of a failed attempt to resurrect the dead. Blindness - In some legends, the shroud allows the bearer to see their own fate or the fates of others around them, but inflicts a permanent, irrevocable blindness on the wearer. Perhaps the most disturbing of these tales is The Court of King Harlinn, where a paranoid monarch commanded his servants to wear the cowl every morning and night, making sure the king would live through each day and thwarting all attempts at assassination. The legend ends when a servant lies to the king, who is strangled in his sleep by the hordes of blinded attendants that he has discarded over the years. Protection from Necromancy - In many legends, the Shroud has been used to ward off necromancy, ensuring the body buried in it can never been desecrated by the black arts. Alternatively, in the famous bard's tale Aaston and the Lich, the hero Aaston confronts a powerful necromancer having donned the cowl. Immune to the lich's spells, Aaston nevertheless must fight his way through hosts of undead while blind, finally vanquishing the lich before succumbing to his own wounds. Category:Deity Category:Artefacts Category:Raven Queen Category:Lady of Candles Category:Death